STREAMING AND CONSUMER TECHNOLOGY
All-in-one solution for compliance and quality control.
StreamAware On-Demand automates video quality monitoring and advanced quality checks, improving end-to-end visibility and increasing operational efficiency.
Improving accuracy, speed, efficiency, and compliance.
50% Reduction
One major streaming service cut manual quality assurance interventions in half.
33.6B Minutes
Across streaming partners, 33.6 billion minutes of video were assured for quality and compliance in 2023.
85% Less
A top streaming service reduced Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) by 85%.
Why IMAX StreamAware? Why now?
Increases efficiency
Automates video quality checks, increasing efficiency and saving time and resources.
Simplifies workflows
All-in-one QC and QA software platform eliminates need for multiple tools and platforms.
Improves viewing experience
One objective measure of quality throughout the workflow ensures a consistent, high-quality viewer experience.
Business Advantage
IMAX StreamAware™ | ON-DEMAND is more than perceptual quality — it’s a unified, cost-efficient solution for compliance and quality control. This platform offers:
Efficient operations | Reduce redundancy with one tool for video quality verification and must-have element checks. Gain better visibility of your video supply chain. |
Cost-effectiveness | Streamline operational efficiency with automated excellence, reducing manual checks and improving efficiency. |
Increased profitability | Customize compliance to meet industry standards and unique viewer experience requirements. Accept, reject, or flag assets based on the trusted IMAX quality metric. |
The IMAX Difference
Quality assurance | Trust in IMAX VisionScience for unparalleled perceptual checks recognized by experts. Rely on IMAX’s automated QA/QC, the industry benchmark, assuring billions of viewing minutes each month. |
Comprehensive quality checks | Industry standard and user-defined quality checks include macroblocking detection, color volume difference for both HDR and SDR, content complexity scoring to assess encoding difficulty, comprehensive noise, and gamut analysis and more. |
Future-ready | The QA/QC installation lays the foundation for effortless activation of dynamic optimization, ensuring optimal encoding and pre-emptive quality assurance from the start. |
Containers / Codecs / Formats Support
Containers | IMF, MXF, MOV, MP4, MPEG-TS, AVI, M4V, MPG, V210, WebM, YUV |
Video | Raw, Image Sequence (EXR, DX, Targa, TIFF, PNG) |
Audio | PCM, MPEG-2, MPEG-3, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital (AC-3), |
Closed Captions | CEA-608/CEA-708 in Line 21 video |
HDR Formats | HDR10, HLG, HDR10+, Dolby Vision |
Perceptual Video Quality & Video Analysis
IMAX ViewerScore (XVS) | No-reference: IMAX ViewerScore (NR XVS) evaluates video quality without needing reference material. It's highly accurate, strongly correlates with SSIMPLUS® reference-based scores and Mean Opinion Scores (MOS), and employs deep neural networks (DNN) for assessment, making it a reliable no-reference metric. |
IMAX Encoder Performance Score (XEPS) | Evaluates encoder or transcoder performance by comparing its output to a pristine source, focusing on encoding-related degradation. |
IMAX Banding Score (XBS) | The IMAX Banding Score (XBS) is a measurement of the amount of color banding that is present within the asset. Banding, otherwise known as color contouring, is a common artifact of the video compression process and due to the quantization introduced by the video codec. It is most obvious in areas where the content calls for the rendering of smooth gradient regions, such as the sky, water or ground. In these regions, pixel values that are meant to be represented uniquely so as to provide a gentle transition from one shade or color to another are, instead, aggregated into a much smaller set of values creating discrete bands of colors. |
Color Volume Difference (CVD) | Color Volume Difference is a metric for color quality assessment that supports both HDR and SDR content. The metric provides a visibility map that helps to quickly identify areas with significant perceptual color differences. |
IMAX Content Complexity Score (XCCS) | Content Complexity Score is a measure to describe how difficult it is to encode an asset/any piece of content. Content Complexity is one of the most important metrics when making decisions about encoding configurations like bitrate allocation, resolution, etc. |
Physical Noise | Physical Noise measures the standard deviation of camera/sensor noise. |
Visual Noise | Visual Noise measures the standard deviation of noise considering contrast masking behavior of the underlying content. |
Color Gamut Analysis | Analyzes pixel values and determines the gamut coverage of each frame. |
Luminance Analysis | XVS assesses luminance values for each frame, MaxFALL, and MaxCLL to help content providers maintain creative intent despite display limitations. |
Viewer Modes | Typical Viewer Mode |
Frame Viewer App | XEPS Quality Map |
Quality Control Features
File Properties | Frame Rate, Scan Type, Resolution, Resolution Name, Codec, Codec Profile, Chroma Subsampling, Dynamic Range, Dynamic Range Format, Pixel Format, Storage Aspect Ratio, Time Base, Timecode, Bit Depth, Horizontal Resolution, Vertical Resolution, Stream Index, Avg. Bitrate (Mbps), Min. Bitrate (Mbps), Max. Bitrate (Mbps), Color Primaries, Color space, Color transfer characteristics, MXF/QuickTime/MP4/3GPP related metadata. |
Container Compliance Checks | MXF (Op1a, AS10, AS11) |
Freeze Frames Check | |
Black Frames Check | |
Color Bars Check | SMPTE, EBU |
Media Time and SMPTE Timecode Support | |
Score Checks | User-defined threshold and duration quality checks for: |
Content Layout Detection | Analyze and identify the arrangement and structure of elements such as black screens, frozen frames, solid color backgrounds, moments of silence, and color bars within content. |
Active A/V Layout Detection | Identifies content segments with user-defined audio and video conditions, aiding in accurate subtitle alignment validation by highlighting moments of concurrent audio and video activity within the content. |
HDR Metadata | Color Primaries, Color space, Color transfer characteristics, MaxFALL, MaxCLL. |
IMF Master Display Metadata | Mastering Display Maximum luminance, Minimum Luminance, Mastering display primaries, Mastering display whitepoint. |
Missing Closed Captions Check | CEA-608 & CEA-708 |
Cadence | Analyzes the frame structure and sequence in a video stream. It detects cadence patterns, fields, frames, and is essential for processes like deinterlacing, frame rate conversion, and quality control to ensure accurate video playback and quality preservation. |
Cadence Validation | Cadence validation detects cadence patterns that fall outside the user-defined acceptable patterns or sequences. |
Broken Cadence Detection | Detection of frames that are out of order or missing within the expected cadence sequence. |
PSF Validation | Progressive Segmented Frame detection. |
Frame-rate Validation | Verifies that the frame rate falls within the user-defined acceptable range of frame rates. |
IMF Master Display Metadata | Mastering Display Maximum luminance, Minimum Luminance, Mastering display primaries, Mastering display whitepoint. |
Frame-rate Cross-Validation | Checks that the frame rate information derived from both the container and the bitstream matches. |
Silence Detection | All channels except LFE. |
Photosensitive Epilepsy Test | SDR, HDR10, HLG, Dolby Vision (Master Display). |
Dolby Vision Metadata Validation | Embedded and Sidecar. |
Maxfall & Maxcll Cross-validation | Checks that the MaxFALL and MaxCLL information obtained from the container, IMF/CPL, and Dolby Vision Metadata corresponds accurately to the measured values in the actual content. |
Audio Loudness | Standards: |
Audio Clipping | Audio clipping identifies when audio signal surpasses the maximum amplitude threshold of a recording or playback system, causing distortion and a harsh auditory experience. This distortion results from the flattening of the audio signal's waveform at its peak points. |
Audio Clicks and Pops | This feature is designed to identify and flag instances of audible clicks and pops in audio tracks. These unwanted artifacts often occur due to discontinuities or irregularities in the audio signal and can be highly distracting to listeners. |
Audio Sidecar Support | Support of audio analysis and QC checks on audio sidecars. |
Audio Phase Mismatch | Audio phase mismatch detection identifies and flag discrepancies in the phase alignment of audio signals: |
Job Analysis Templates | Customizable templates for automated submission of Job analyses. |
Quality Control Dashboard and Reports | QC status page |
Deployment Types
Fixed scale: As an EC2 instance on AWS using the IMAX Stream On-Demand Platform AMI.
On AWS EKS as a hosted SaaS instance (deployed in an IMAX account by IMAX). |
System Requirements
Minimum requirements: 16vCPU/16 GB RAM |